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New Delhi : The Chief Justice of India (CJI) Justice Dipak Misra launched various applications for the benefit of the litigants and lawyers in the third week of August, 2018, at an event in the Supreme Court of India. Ravi Shankar Prasad, Union Minister for Law and Justice, released brochures to increase awareness about eCourt initiatives and user manuals on the applications and services provided under eCourts Project to publicize work done under eCourts Project and to enable litigants, lawyers and other stakeholders to avail these services.
Justice M B Lokur, Judge incharge, eCommittee, Supreme Court of India, under whose guidance the eCourts project reached many milestones in the delivery of digital court services, explained the features and benefits of the applications. The path breaking citizen centric applications launched during the ceremony have been developed under the leadership of Justice Lokur. The principal components of the eCourts Project especially the crucial pan-Indian Wide Area Network (WAN) Connectivity programme has been steered by Dr Alok Srivastava, Secretary, Department of Justice, according to a PIB release.
Three applications of e-filing, e-pay, and NSTEP (National Service and Tracking of Electronic Processes) created under the eCourts project were launched on the occasion. The second phase of the eCourts project is implemented by Department of Justice during 2015 – 19 under the guidance of eCommittee, Supreme Court of India for ICT enablement of all district and subordinate courts in the country.
The eFiling application is made available at efiling.ecourts.gov.in where online registration of lawyers and litigants can be done. Through the application, one can file cases from any part of India to any court on registration. Portfolio management of cases of litigants and lawyers is provided on this portal and one can get updates from time to time about filed cases, cases under objection or rejected cases. The facility of eSign is provided for those who cannot afford purchasing token for making digital signatures.
The eFiling application will facilitate efficient administration of Judicial System as it will ease pressure on filing counters and will speed up work flow processing. Data entry will be more accurate which will help take data driven decisions in court administration. It will start building digital repositories which will auto generate paper books and can be quickly transmitted to Higher Courts which will reduce delays.
The ePay application at pay.ecourts.gov.in is a unified portal wherein facility to pay online court fees is provided. The platform is user friendly which can be used with very little self help. ePayment is a safe and secure, quick and easy way to pay court fees . At present, the facility will be made operational in two states of Maharashtra and Haryana. OTP authentication provides secure way to financial transactions and one can get instant acknowledgement through SMS and print receipt.
NSTEP – National Service and Tracking of Electronic Processes is another innovative application launched as part of the eCourts Project, which is a collaboration between Case Information Software (CIS), Web portal and Mobile Application.